


Of course, I don't believe you're dead and gone.

by Myessa



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Childhood, Dork Lovers Server Challenge, Gen, Memories, Songfic, Studio Session
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-19 22:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18980014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myessa/pseuds/Myessa
Summary: Brian misses an old friend and tries to honour her through music.Brian writes best when he's being weird and/or sad. Sorry.





	Of course, I don't believe you're dead and gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey beauty!
> 
> This is my entry for the 6th Dork Lovers Server Challenge, this time the prompt was "Childhood".  
> I hope it's any good.  
> The timeline throughout is somewhat mixed, I hope it's clear. (Everything _cursive_ is a flashback/in the past.)
> 
> Not betaed, all mistakes are mine.
> 
> All song credits to Brian May and Queen. (Duh)

_"Daddy, daddy, look!"_  
_"What is it, Bri?"_  
_"She's back!"_  
_"Who's back?"_  
_"She is!"_  
_True enough, the cat he befriended a few days ago in their garden is sitting at their back door, as if she knows Brian is about to go play outside._

 _"Daddy, can we keep her? Please?"_  
_The same pretty feline is curling around his legs and plops down in his lap as he speaks. Brian is more than happy to oblige to her request to be petted._  
_"Brian, darling, we have no idea whose she really is. We can't just go around adopting pets, no matter how much you like them."_  
_"But Daddy, please, she keeps returning anyway. And she's my friend, look!"_  
_The cat purrs satisfied and stretches herself languidly over his legs, as to prove his words._  
_A few hours later she just disappears again, like nearly every day the past weeks. But Brian might well be right about her being his friend, the time for which she stays away decreases every day._

 _"Daddy, can she come in with me?" asks Brian hopefully, standing at the back door with the cat scooped up in his arms. The twig stuck in his curls and the rosy colour in his face are clear evidence he's been running around with her, playing all kinds of games._  
_"She's basically living with us now anyway, even if we don't let her in, Harold..." he hears his mother say._  
_"Yes, see, mom agrees! Can she?" he asks again, bopping on his toes._  
_Disturbed by the irregular movement, the cat gets up and twists so it can rub her head against Brian's cheek. Her move effectively stops his bouncing, distracting him far too much._

_In the weeks since she started coming by regularly, she and Brian had become rather inseparable. Wherever Brian was, if outside, was she as well. She rarely left the May garden without him anymore._

_They still have no idea where she came from, though._  
_Brian has, however, convinced his parents to put a bowl with cat food out every day when they have lunch, so she could eat 'with' them._  
_It isn't a big step to let her have the food inside then, after all._  
_"Well, alright then. She can come in while we have lunch. But not on the table!" decides his dad finally._

_And with that, the cat enters their house and secures herself in their lives._

 

Brian is walking back home from the stores when he sees her. He's so sure it's her that he nearly goes to pick her up.  
Then the cat turns around and reveals a white spot she did not have.  
He has to remind himself that it's impossible anyway.  
'Stop being silly, Brian, she's long dead!' he reminds himself.  
He can't exactly help the unexpected yet strong wave of longing that sweeps over him though.

In the evening, even after his cosy dinner with Chrissie, he still can't forget the encounter. But he sees cats every day, if not on the street then at Freddie's, why does this mean so much then?

Before he knows, he's reminiscing the memories he has about her and the happy days they shared instead of trying to figure out why it meant so much today. Eventually, the longing that had him in its grip since he saw the cat is replaced by some form of thankful happiness.  
The words start flowing naturally then, jotted down on a paper he finds somewhere on his desk:

'She came without a farthing  
A babe without a name  
So much ado 'bout nothing  
Is what she'd try to say  
So much ado my lover  
So many games we played  
'Her ways are always with me  
I wonder all the while  
But please you must forgive me  
I am old but still a child  
Of course, I don't believe  
You're dead  
And gone'

A vaguely uplifting melody starts forming in the back of his head, yet he knows the essence of the song will be sad, in a way.  
But the words don't come anymore and he leaves the song for another day.

 

 _It's so hot outside that Brian doesn't have the energy to do much more than just laying down. Not that he minds so much, now he has time to read his beloved books. Thus he lies in a lawn chair with the cat stretched out all over his chest. He holds his book just far enough up to not bother her and reads, imagining himself being a professor finding out all kinds of new and interesting stuff about the universe._  
_The cat is warm, her dark fur so hot it's nearly too much for his own skin from the sun but he doesn't mind._

_"One day, I'll know where the rainbow ends and bring it to you," he promises the cat as what he reads about the phenomenon reminds him of how confused she was about the changing colours he let appear on the kitchen floor with his prism glass just yesterday._

 

Lifelessly Brian rummages through his papers. He's been feeling down lately and can't pinpoint why. The tour was great and so is being at home with Chrissie for a while, that can't be it.  
Still, they have an album to record, so he's decided to try and get some work done.  
He's about to give up, though, when his eye falls on something he'd scribbled down a few months ago, before the tour started.  
  
That might well be it, he misses the kind of friend she was. Maybe because he hasn't been at the animal shelter lately, he thinks.  
  
The lines aren't finished, though, and he sits down to complete the song. He knows he had a melody of sorts for it but he can't for the life of him remember.  
After a good hour, he deems the song complete and moves to his piano to fabricate a bit of a tune for it.  
To his frustration, it won't come out in a way he likes but he doesn't know what to change either.  
Annoyed, he leaves the song again, to walk right back into the room to pick all his scribbles and drabbles about it up and put it in his jacket.  
Maybe working on it in the studio in a week will help.

 

 _One day, when he comes back home from school, he finds her curled into a tight ball on his bed and panting heavily. Her eyes are watery and nothing he does, no petting, no holding, no singing will calm her down._  
  
_"Mom, I think she's sick..." he tells her, worry tightening his voice._  
_She nods. "She started behaving oddly this morning and has only gotten worse since."_  
  
_His mother doesn't mention the vet. That means they won't go. If she's been like this since the morning already, his mom has had more than enough time to decide on that and if they would go, she'd have said it already._  
  
_With_ lead _in his shoes, he goes back to his room and holds the cat until it's time for dinner._  
_That evening, he holds her until deep in the night and sleep takes him away._  
  
_The next morning, she's gone. Her food untouched, no trace to be found._  
  
_Brian is old enough to know, besides, he's had some bio classes too, that she likely hid somewhere to die alone, as animals do._  
_Sure enough, two days later he finds her, right where they first met._  
_In the garden, in the hollow rhododendron bush, cold and dead._  
  
_The summer, it would have been the 10th with his furry friend, had just started._

 

"Let's get some form of inventory together, dears, who's got a demo or concept ready?" calls Freddie out when he, Brian and John bump into each other in the corridors of the studio.  
"I've got something that I'd like for you to try? I don't think it'll need much drumming so we can start it without Rog if needed" answers John, taking a folded paper from his inner pocket and handing it to Freddie.  
The singer takes it with an excited nod.  
"I've got something too. It's not too happy, though," says Brian.  
"Alright, we'll start with Deacy's, then!" decides Freddie, seeing that Roger hasn't arrived in their studio yet. Nor has Mike, for that matter.  
  
While Freddie reads the lyrics John handed to him and the notes accompanying them on the paper, John puts on a demo.  
Freddie starts experimentally humming along with the tune after the first verse, looking at John for approval.  
"Ooh, let's try it live! Bri, here, take the maracas," calls Freddie when the demo ends.  
John is already at his guitar, softly strumming it to test the tuning.  
"I've got an alternative intro as well, by the way," John says and he starts playing it just before Freddie can launch into an experimental version of his song, with Brian joining in after a few bars.  
Then he repeats it for Freddie to sing along.  
  
It's beginning to really sound like a song now and Freddie starts doing the cowbell sounds noted on the lyric sheet as well.  
When they finish, John smiles at the sounds Freddie keeps making.  
"I think you've got the melody down, now, Fred!" he compliments.  
"Alright, let's get a take, come on!" says Freddie while turning on everything that's needed to record in the control room and starting the tape, as both Mike and Roger aren't there to do it for them.  
  
"John's new song, take one," he improvises, doing a bad imitation of the bored face Mike has after a long day of them doing more quarrelling than recording as he says it.  
Brian sends him a smile, John is too busy to notice.  
"Okay," confirms John, somewhat belated since the tape already rolls.  
"One, two," he counts after a second and he starts the last intro they played.  
  
They play through the song - well, Brian and John actually play and Freddie alternates his singing with humming, having lost the lyric sheet guiding somewhere between playing cowbell and doing the things needed to record.  
"What do you think?" asks John by the end.  
"It's pretty good I think, I prefer the other intro though, can we do it with that again?" says Freddie.  
Brian nods,  "yeah, let's try it with the other intro too."  
  
"Take two, John's new song," says Freddie again after starting the tape.  
Without a practice round, it ends up rather messy and they all pause sometimes because one has lost where they are or just got confused with their own part.  
Despite that, Brian likes this version better. It turns out Freddie likes it better too.  
"Well, that's a mess but I think this might be nicer than the second thing you showed us just now!" he remarks as soon as the tape stops rolling.  
 John nods. "Okay, I thought so too, yes."  
  
Freddie goes back to the tape and turns it on even before asking for the round, clearly, he wouldn't make an efficient engineer...  
"Let's do a round, let's have a round three, come on!" he urges the others.  
"Okay," says John, nodding affirmatively while Freddie busies himself with the soundboard again.  
"Do we start with that old intro and then you begin?" John asks to be sure while he strums a bar or two of the intro he refers to.  
Freddie nods and flaps his hand around in a wide gesture. "You should keep it flowing," he instructs and proceeds to show what he means with some vocal illustration. {"taadadadadaa-pongpapapong-pang."}  
"Okay, trying again," says John while he plucks another few notes.  
  
Freddie makes to turn the tape on, to find it running already.  
"This'll be take two, take two," he says instead.  
"One, two, one-two-three-four," counts John again and he starts playing.  
Again, Freddie sings just the melody on some lines, but he manages to sing more than the last round. Even though the lyrics sheet still isn't in his hands.  
After Freddie ends the song with a final 'yeah', John looks around to where the singer stands.  
"How was that?" he asks.  
"Ooh, it's lovely!" answers Freddie, a smile on his face. This take went rather smooth and they all feel the potential the song has. Even like this it already sounds really pleasant.  
"Next time you should probably use my lyrics sheet again, though, Fred!" winks John at him once the tape is stopped.  
  
"I think you've got the essence of it now, let's move on to Brian's thing then?" proposes John.  
"Sure," nods Brian. Freddie agrees.  
"I don't have a demo yet but I can play the melody for you, Fred. I'd like it to be piano though, should I play my example on guitar or piano then?" says Brian.  
"Can I read along while you play? Piano, I mean?" asks Freddie.  
"Yeah, I've got it written down as well," confirms Brian and he gives Freddie his paper with scribbles.  
He starts playing the piano and sings:  
'She came without a farthing  
A babe without a name  
So much ado 'bout nothing  
Is what she'd try to say  
So much ado my lover...'  
  
He's not even through the first verse when Freddie and John start throwing each other glances.  
It's not exactly what they'd expect from Brian.  
At the chorus, Freddie gets concerned. Brian might have his melancholic days but this was quite depressing, even for him. And he couldn't think of a recent reason for the song. He sends a worried look at John.  
  
Brian keeps singing, oblivious to his bandmates.  
  
"It's contradicting itself a bit, dear," remarks Freddie, deciding to keep quiet about his worries for now, after Brian finishes.  
"Yet, not quite enough for it to be a statement, you should maybe play a bit more into that." he continues.  
Brian nods thoughtfully.  
  
"What is it about?" asks John. Brian bites on his bottom lip.  
"Loss. The loss of someone dear and dealing with that kind of pain," he says.  
John keeps staring into his soul. At least, that's what it feels like for Brian.  
"My childhood cat, specifically, in fact," he elaborates eventually.  
  
Then he shakes his head determinedly.  
"She was loved, that's what is important. Now to go back to the song, I think you're right, Fred. That's what it should be. What do you propose for the piano part?" he says, determined to get the song right and done.  
  
John looks at him with an odd look in his eyes but nods eventually.  
"Yes, let's finish the song."  
  
"Right, well, I think maybe something like this..." starts Freddie, to end up just playing a completely different melody.  
  
Brian has to admit it fits better with the mood he intended for the song to have.  
By the end of the day, after Roger and Mike have arrived as well, they have both tracks mostly ready.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey lovely,
> 
> thanks for reading!  
> I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> Comment and/or leave kudos if you like, it will be much, much appreciated. ;) <3
> 
> I wish you all a good day!


End file.
